50 INDIAN DUCKS, 



narrows off either iuto dry land or again widens out into yet another bhil. 

 Then by night they pole silently up the lake towards the nets, driving the 

 flocks of duck and teal silently before them, nor is any noise raised until 

 an approach has been made to within some 200 yards or even less of the 

 nets. Thus when the shouts are started many of the flocks have not time 

 to rise high enough to evade the nets, into which thev flv and are 

 entangled. Cotton-Teal, of course, fly low along the surface of the water, 

 and hence fall victims to the nets more easily than such ducks as get 

 quickly into the air and fly high. On the Moolna Bhil I am sure forty 

 or fifty couple might be shot in a day by a single gun without any very 

 great trouble or luck : but in Bengal very few sportsmen except such as 

 shoot for quantity alone consider them game, and Cotton-Teal are left 

 alone, unless when required as food for servants, boatmen, or coolies, who 

 like their flesh and eat it greedily, preferring them to more delicately 

 flavoured ducks. They breed in great numbers in these vast sheets of 

 water on the little islands which are dotted about in all directions, and 

 which contain from three or four up to a hundred trees or so. Xor are 

 they much molested when breeding, though now and then the miseral^le 

 fishermen, who are the onl}^ inhabitants of these watery, fever-stricken 

 parts, may take a clutch or two of eggs as food. In different parts of 

 India their habits also vary very much. Hume writes : '• Tame and 

 familiar little birds, village ponds, at any rate where singhara are frown, 

 seem to be just as much affected as more secluded pieces of water. You 

 may often see half a dozen dabbling about in the water and weeds within 

 ten yards of the spot where the village washerman is noisilv thrashinir the 

 clothes of the community, moy^e sua, on large stones or ribbed pieces of 

 wood, as if his one object in life was to knock everything into rao-s at the 

 earliest possible moment. Even the loud half grunt, half groan, with 

 which he relieves his feelings after each mighty thwack has no terror for 

 these little birds." 



The habitat of these remarkably domesticated Cotton - Teal is not 

 mentioned by Hume ; but in Rungpore, though not quite so tame as the 

 above description shows them to be in some places, they take little notice 

 of passers by unless very closely approached. They squat in the roadside 

 ditches and tanks, and, when finally leaving them, scuttle away, chattering 

 and clucking for all they are worth, as if trying whether thev could 

 vociferate harder than fly, or vice versa, often only to return to some spot 

 within fifty or sixty yards of that just left. Their flight is decidedly 

 quick as well as fast, and they dodge round corners and avoid stumps and 



